Wednesday, May 09, 2007

5 great student films

A bunch of us animators are going down to the Cal Arts producers show on Thursday. One of the people here at Pixar pointed us to some of the films that did not make it into the show. Here is a link to five films that were not accepted but are very well done. Congrats to the directors for making such great films.

Yeah, I wonder why so many calarts films every year are presented in unfinished fashion? and yet there are some others that are complete with colors and background and everything. one would think that a full year should be enough to produce 4 or 5 minutes of animation in a short film, no?

4-5 minutes in a year on your own, while doing planning, character and background design, and story, is an incredible accomplishment. That would be 5760 drawings at 24fps for 4 minutes, never mind how many revisions you'd go through. I don't know how some people get 4-5 min completely done, but even the 'unfinished' ones are extraordinary usually.

Thanks to Adrian these films were made possible for public viewing. We all worked very hard on these films and it's nice having sites like youtube to help get them in the public's eye. All of us worked very hard on them and believe me having at least a solid minute of animation in a film is very challenging to pull off. At Cal Arts, it's true we have a full year to work on it, but you can't forget the classes we have to go to, the assignments, and all the development work we have to go through to pull off an entertaining film. I give major kudos to all who completed a film this year with little or no animation at all. It's not easy to do, especially if it's quality work being done. Congratulations to all and especially to those who made it into the Producers' Show. See you tonight!

Great animated shorts are mostly incomplete because there's no producer cracking the whip... There will be plenty of that for Joe Pitt and his talented buddies *after* college when they're working at the big studios. Good Luck guys!!!

you're right bobby! i also think that "special delivery" was from the point of story-telling the strongest one. i really adore the "dad-cares-about-wonderboy" sequence ... great music and strong emotional shots! but the very next sudden break took me out a bit. but that's not a critic. it's well done, because of establishing the happy end (with a great conclusion) the feelings must be raised up again. in the last post someone asked about the benefit of making an animatic. that's one excellent example!